


Blossom

by emerald_psyche



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, First Meetings, M/M, florist!sousuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emerald_psyche/pseuds/emerald_psyche
Summary: Person B is starting to get a little freaked out by Person A who shows up every day to buy another Venus fly trap and eventually Person B just flat out asks why because I mean what do you even do with all of them? Are you trying to make a giant army of flesh eating plants or what?





	Blossom

**Author's Note:**

> Aka the SouRin flowershop au no one asked for. Saw the prompt floating somewhere on tumblr, but i can't find it now...  
> Little disclaimer: I wrote this like 6 months ago, and I kinda cringe when i read it, so there might be a few mistakes, sorry! If you find any, please let me know!  
> Anyways, hope you enjoy it!

 In all honesty, Sousuke was starting to get a little scared. Contrary to what people thought, working as a florist meant that, apart from the old ladies asking you which bouquet they should get for a funeral -I don’t know, Debby, it’s not like someone’s going to complain- he also encountered a lot of weird people. Now, he was not a judgemental person. He could handle a lot of things, without as much as flinching –at least not externally.  He thought his most bizarre experience was a guy walking in the little flower shop his mother owned –who had pestered him to run the place while she was on vacation, mind you- and furiously slapping a 2,000 yen bill, followed by the guy asking Sousuke “How do you say “fuck you” in flower?” To be honest, at first he had thought he was hallucinating from too much coffee -he may love swimming, but practice at 6 am is fucking _brutal_ -, but then realized that yes, the guy was indeed serious.

After that little incident, he had thought hey, _how much weirder can this get? It’s a flower shop, for Christ’s sakes._ Apparently, a lot. Because, in his -humble- opinion, seventeen Venus fly traps were seventeen too many.  It wasn’t just the number of the plants, or even the plant itself –seriously, there weren’t even a lot of flies in Japan-, no, that was not it. It was the fact that, for the past two weeks and three days, this guy –this really hot guy, if Sousuke was being honest- got in the flower shop around ten in the morning, and asked for a Venus fly trap. Just one. For seventeen days straight. _Seriously, though, what does he even do with all of them?_

Just as that thought was running through his head, the bell above the door chimed, and as Sousuke turned his head towards the sound, he saw the person that had just entered was none other than a familiar redhead. _Rin_ , he thought. They had exchanged names when Rin had first come in.

 _Sousuke was solving a crossword –he didn’t have many customers that day, sue him- when he caught sight of the most vibrant red hair he had ever seen. After doing a not-so-subtle double take (which the stranger thankfully didn’t notice, as he was turned to the side) he realized that yes, his hair, was_ that _red, and did not, in fact, look dyed. Interesting. Since he also looked a little lost, Sousuke decided to make his presence known_

 _“Excuse me, do you need any help picking flowers?” he inquired, abandoning his post behind the counter. The guy looked up at him, and Sousuke realized that, apart from the most striking red hair he had ever seen, said guy also had fucking red eyes. In all honesty, it was incredibly fucking unfair. His eyes should have been terrifying, because that ruby red shade was probably nearly identical to demons’ eyes in every illustration known to man, keeping people awake at night. Instead, his eyes were a far cry from nightmare material. No, his eyes were…captivating. Enthralling. Hell, they were_ dreamy _, reminding Sousuke the richest burgundy wines, and soft velvet beneath his fingerti-_

_“-ank you, yeah. Um, you seemed really absorbed in your magazine or whatever, and I didn’t wanna bother you, but could you please get me a venus fly trap?”_

_Sousuke realized that dreamy-eyes had responded, and was interrupted from his contemplating. Luckily, he had actually caught the guy’s request, and immediately set to work. “Yeah, just give me a sec. We keep them in the back, because they spook some customers out,” he replied, smiling politely, turning on his heels to satisfy this guy’s request._

_After he came back, he found dreamy-eyes fiddling with his shark necklace._ So, hot _and_ adorable _, Sousuke thought._ I’m fucked _. Not letting himself linger on that thought, he cleared his throat, effectively turning dreamy-eyes’ attention to him._

 _“Um, I’m nearly done, just let me wrap this for you, because you do_ not _want to get bitten by it, believe me,” he announced, going behind the counter._

_“Speaking from personal experience? Because if so, that should have been pretty fucking terrible”._

_“Luckily, it was my mother, not me, but I remember she was quite pissed. Speaking of, I really hope you’re not planning to give this to a girlfriend or something, because that wouldn’t be the best gift,” Sousuke advised, finding himself falling into an easy conversation with the customer._

_“No, no at all!” Dreamy-eyes looked slightly flustered, Sousuke noted. “It’s for a friend of mine. I-I don’t have a girlfriend or anything,” he explained quickly, and Sousuke nodded absent-mindedly, wondering to himself how a hot guy like the one in front of him was single._

_“So, since it’s for a friend, would you like a card or something, mister…?” he inquired, still in the process of wrapping the devil itself- ahem, the venus fly trap._

_“Rin. And, um no, that won’t be necessary, thank you,” dreamy-eyes answered._

_Rin._ Pretty name _, Sousuke thought._

_“Nice name. I’m Sousuke, by the way,” he offered. “Here you go. That will be 800 yen.”_

_“Yes, um here. Thank you very much.”_

_“No problem at all. Have a good day!”_

_“Thanks, you too!”_

_And Sousuke was left yet again with his old ladies asking him about funerals. Goddammit._

“Let me guess, a venus fly trap?”

Rin nodded hesitantly. For the past week or so, he had looked increasingly shy –or maybe afraid? Whatever the case, Sousuke thought he must have realized that hey, maybe this plant obsession of his was kind of fucking weird, but Rin hadn’t said anything else about it since the first day, when he had explained it was for a friend.

_How many of them does his friend need?_

_Fuck it_ , he thought _. I’m gonna ask him about it. It’s fucking weird._

As Sousuke returned from the back of the store to his counter with the death plant cradled in his arms, he mustered all his courage. It was now or never.

“Are you building a man-eating army?”

“…pardon?”

“Listen, normally I don’t judge” he started explaining. “I talk about funerals with old ladies regularly, and once a dude asked me how to say “fuck you” in flower, so I’m pretty used to seeing and listening to weird shit. Seventeen venus fly traps though? I mean, one or two, as unusual as it is, I get. _But_ s _eventeen?_ Just what the hell is going on?”

“Listen, it’s really not-”

“And I know _, I know_ what you said, they’re for a friend. But now, I’m thinking that maybe that was just a lame ass excuse so that I don’t understand you’re building said army to conquer the world, because _who in the hell needs seventeen of these beasts?_ ”

As Sousuke finished ranting, he realized Rin’s cheeks had gone a little red. Oh man, he’d angered him. Shit.

“Okay, wow. Um, I guess it _does_ look kinda weird, now that you mentioned it. And well, you were right, me saying they were for a friend was a lame ass excuse,” Rin mumbled. Then he broke into a grin. “I’m not, however, building a man-eating army, no matter how tempting that sounds,” he added.

“Oh. Okay, that’s….that’s good to know, I guess.” Sousuke smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Nah, ‘s okay. I guess I do owe you an explanation though.”

“You really don’t have to, you kn-”

“I know, but I might as well get it over with. To be honest, the first time, it really was for a friend. See, I recently came back from Australia where I was training for swimming, and one of my swimmates’ birthday was coming up in June. Now, in case you don’t know this, summers in Australia are absolutely _terrible_ , you have no idea. Sweat, stickiness, and worst of all….flies _everywhere._ So, I thought, hey I should get him something useful this year. The next days I thought maybe, since my friend told me that a Venus fly trap did indeed prove very useful down there, I decided to get my other swimmates one as well. But um, well… there was really another reason as to why I kept coming back here, because honestly, how many friends do you think I have? Truth is, you’re…you’re really, _really_ fucking cute”

Sousuke couldn’t believe in his ears. Rin – _fucking dreamy-eyes_ \- found him cute. Wait, what?

“So let me get this straight,” he started. “You kept buying plants, carnivorous plants to be precise, _because you thought I was cute?”_

The last sentence was said a little louder than usual, and a few heads turned towards them. Sousuke noticed that the red in Rin’s cheeks rivaled that of his hair. Wow.

“Stop shouting! Listen, I know it’s stupid, and I completely get it, okay; you’re not into guys. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting-“

“Rin,” Sousuke cut him off.

“Mmhm?” he replied, his eyes seemingly fixated on his shoelaces

“Shut up,” Sousuke delivered gracefully, a half-smile tugging at his lips

“Huh?” Rin tore his eyes off the floor.

“I think you’re really cute, too.”

“Huh?”

“Are you deaf or…? I said I think you’re really cute too. We should go out sometimes” Sousuke mumbled that last part, still a bit hesitant –and surprised, to be honest, because, really? Rin liked him?

“I-Yeah, that’s a great- I’d love that,” Rin stuttered, the blush on his cheeks having spread on his entire face. _And the tips of his ears_ , Sousuke realized not with a small amount of satisfaction.

“Great,” he replied, quickly scribbling his phone number on an abandoned birthday card that lay on the counter. “Call me,” he winked at Rin.

“Yeah, you got it,” he shot back, seemingly with new-found confidence as he walked towards the shop’s exit.

“Oh, and Rin?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time you like someone, maybe you shouldn’t try to woo them by buying an abundance of carnivorous plants that aren’t even season-appropriate.” Sousuke smirked at him.

“I- Shut up!”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: https://emerald-psyche.tumblr.com/


End file.
